24: Jack digs himself in deeper

DUDE. WE’VE BROKEN THE PM BARRIER! Only 5 more hours and I’m TOTALLY CAUGHT UP! Nevermind the fact that I was only 4 hours behind two weeks ago. HEY LOOK OVER THERE! ~runs away~

12:00:00

Exposition Minute: Larry explains to his troops, and the head of the SWAT team that Matobo and Mrs. Livia Frye are trapped in a panic room, but that the SWAT team mustn’t kill Tony Almeida when they storm the residence. Oh, but can’t the SWAT Team pllllleeeeease kill Tony? Pretty please? NO. But they wanna! NO. NO KILLING TONY ALMEIDA. And the SWAT Team are like, “Fine. Stupid rules.”

At Matobo’s residence, Emerson attacks the Matobo’s guard, but the guard’s like, “Dude. Knock yourself out. I can’t open it — the door can only be opened from the outside.” Jack is still trying to figure out a way in through the hallway, freaking out that they need Matobo if they’re ever going to find Emeka and General Candyman, or something. Don’t overthink it: Jack needs to get into the place that it is impossible to get into. How will he do it? = DRAMA.

So, there’s this blond chick who works at the FBI who I had previously tried to ignore, but it looks like I won’t be able to. Her name is Erika. Erika has bad news for Agent Larry.

12:04:06

As if Agent Larry’s day hasn’t been difficult enough, Erika reports to him that the Attorney General is looking into the news that Red has been torturing suspects in her spare time. He gives Red a call, to ask her about it, and she’s like “Yeah, well maybe I tortured someone who needed a little torturing, but I got the information we needed, and now I’m on my way to go torture Tony and Jack, so shut up already. KBAI.” Agent Larry has a mad.

Billy Walsh’s wife calls him at work, having safely landed, and is like, “Thanks for getting me landed first! That was awesome! Let’s go have some dinner!” But Billy Walsh is like, “Quit being so needy.” And basically hangs up on her. To try to call Matobo’s security chief, who’s a little busy at the moment being threatened by a Transcendentalist with big ideas about journaling.

Inside the panic room, Matombo tries, again, to use the phone, but HA HA, it isn’t working. The thing about Livia Frye is that she is quick on the upshot, and realizes that her husband would die before giving these bad dudes any information, which means that they are going to want to torture her, to make him talk. Matobo’s like, “Yep. That about sums it up.”

12:07:48

Emerson gets on the security camera with the guard, and broadcasts into Matobo’s panic room, threatening to kill the guard if Matobo doesn’t open the door in one minute. And he manages to frame the shot quite nicely. But the guard and Matobo are both like, do it! DO IT! And Emerson’s about to, when the guard gets a call from Billy Walsh, revealing to Emerson that the FBI knows what’s going down. Well, shoot. This certainly puts a crimp in their plans. Well, now what. Jack apparently found access to the panic room’s ventilation system (really? really? Some panic room…) and notes that he has a great recipe for a little ammonia and a splash of bleach which will smoke them out in no time. YES, it might kill them, but cooking is an art, not a science.

12:15:12

Jack whips this together, and then manages to blow it into the panic room (Srsly. When this whole crisis is over, sue your panic room designer, Matobo.). Emerson gets back on the security camera, and is like, “For reals? You’re going to let your wife die?” And Matobo looks at Livia Frye, and is like, “Sorry, baby. You gonna have to die. HONOR!” Livia Frye gives her husband the stink eye.

Back at the FBI office, the Attorney General’s office has sent an Officious Lawyer over to question Red (who isn’t there) and Janeane Garofalo. But Larry is like, “Sorry, Officious Lawyer, we are in the middle of a CRISIS and don’t have time for JUSTICE. GO AWAY.”

12:18:46

Red arrives at Matobo’s house as Jack, et al are waiting out the Matobos, who aren’t looking so great. Collapsed on the floor, eyes rolling back into their heads, etc., etc. Matobo is like, “Let it happen. We’ll be martyrs! It’ll be awesome!” But Livia Frye is like “Aww, hells to the no.” And struggles her way over to the door, which she opens. WOMEN. Always ruining the best laid plans to die as glorious martyrs. PFFT.

As Emerson, Jack and Tony lead the Matobos out to a giant Hey-Look-At-Me-Yellow cargo van, Red watches from the bushes and calls Larry. Unfortunately, SWAT won’t be there for another 5 minutes, so Red should just stand down already. But before Red can stand down, she captured by Emerson’s Other Guy, who hangs up her phone. This makes Larry hit random underlings at the FBI offices. Emerson is all ready to kill her, when Jack intervenes and is like, “If we kill her, we won’t know how much else the FBI knows. THINK ABOUT IT.” And Emerson is all, “Well, you’ve got a point.” They load her into the van along with the Matobos, and drive away. Once in the van, Emerson calls Banker Guy to have his connection at the FBI try to figure out what she knows.

I’ll tell you what Red knows: Red knows that Jack is a BIG STUPID LYING LIARHEAD. Jack glares at Tony for some reason.

12:27:52

First Dude is just chilling at the Potomac, all excited that Sam from Popular gave him some sort of USB drive with a bunch of secrets that his Handsome Son had dug up or something. Boy Wonder knows this dude who can totally crack the encryption, for reals. He gave him a call, and it’s totally cool–they just have to go over to his apartment, and THIS ISN’T SKETCHY AT ALL. There is NO REASON TO BE SUSPICIOUS. First Dude is all excited that he is finally going to expose the truth about his son, but he’s not going to tell Lady President about this just yet, because that would mess up the plot.

In the Oval Office, Lady President has called Junction Jack in to secure his support on the military operation in Africa. Lady President is fully aware, thank you very much, that there will probably be a terrorist attack, but AMERICA MUST NOT GIVE IN TO BLACKMAILING TERRORISTS. In case you missed it the first 18 times she made the same point. Secretary of Hand Wringing enters with news on Matobo’s kidnapping, and reveals that Jack and Tony were identified. Surely this must scare the Lady President into backing off on the invasion, right? I mean, even an irrational woman can see that Matobo is the only man who can hold Sengala together after the invasion, so they should maybe back down until at least Matobo is found, right? NO. WRONG. FIND MATOBO AND CARRY ON WITH THE INVASION. AND QUIT BEING SUCH NANCIES.

12:31:44

Back at the FBI, Billy Walsh slinks over to Erika and is all, “sorry I was such a jerkface to you earlier (this is not important — he snapped at her earlier in the day). My wife’s plane landed” And Erika’s all, “Yippee!” But? Then? Goes on to that she can’t stop thinking about last night. Which, I guess means they are getting it on. Janeane Garofalo walks into the hormonal cloud hovering over the cubicle and pulls Billy Walsh away to go work on some technical mumbo-jumbo of one kind or another.

Improbably, the FBI magically knows that Red is still alive, even though there is no evidence to support this. The SWAT team has arrived at the Matobo residence and are sweeping the property for stuff. I dunno. The point is, finding Red is everyone’s TOP PRIORITY.

12:34:02

Inside the van, Red apologizes to Matobo for not protecting him, and he’s like, “You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” while glaring at Jack Bauer. But we all know that he’s really mad at Livia Frye for being such a big baby and unwilling to die in HONOR and GLORY. Red yells at Jack some more, because, why not. In the meantime, Bank Guy has called Emerson back to tell him that Red, in fact, knows nothing (again, where is this information coming from, exactly? I know, a source at the FBI. But how does that source know what Red knows? Exactly?) and they should just go ahead and kill her. KTHNXBAI.

12:40:17

Larry yells at people. Red is a priority! Get people out there looking!

12:41:07

Inside the fancier, less dank lair of evil, Emeka makes a phone call and learns that the Americans still haven’t pulled back their troops. WHAT’S IT GONNA TAKE TO MAKE THE AMERICANS TO PULL BACK THEIR TROOPS? DANG. Bank Guy’s like, “Dude, whatever. You have the thing-a-ma-bob. Just launch another attack or something. And anyway, once my dudes get rid of some pesky FBI agent they picked up, I’ll deliver Matobo to you personally, which will be TOTALLY AWESOME.”

12:42:55.

Boy Wonder leads First Dude to a swank apartment, which First Dude quickly figures out is actually Sam from Popular‘s place, and he’s all “whaaa?” before he notices that Boy Wonder is snapping on some latex gloves. Which is never a good sign. First Dude FINALLY puts two and two together, and is like, “ZOMG, YOU KILLED MY SON!” But then he collapses to floor but not because Boy Wonder has poisoned him, because that would be too easy. No, Boy Wonder has dosed him with some totally made-up neuroparalyzer. For fun. Boy Wonder, of course, blah blah blahs about how he had to kill Handsome Son after he discovered things he didn’t need to see. But Boy Wonder killed him quickly! So quit being so ungrateful.

Boy Wonder then calls some other secret service agent, and is like, “Hey, I’m going to give you a bunch of exposition, so listen up. Go get Sam from Popular and bring her back to her apartment. The story will be that First Dude killed her and then killed himself. Which no one will ever question, especially not on the heels of the First Son turning up dead. Two birds! It’ll be awesome and not weird at all.”

12:45:59

So Agent Forehead approaches Sam from Popular at a cafe and tells her that she is serious danger, for seriously, and needs to go into protective custody. But it’s all good, because they can pick up some things from her apartment first! Let’s go!

12:51:14

Janeane Garofalo and Billy Walsh talk about how the AG wants to question Janeane Garofalo about Red and TORTURE. Also: Larry totally is not going to cover for Janeane Garofalo for being Red’s accessory. Too bad, so sad.

The Officious Lawyer from the Attorney General’s office has caught on that Red has been abducted, but that’s cool — he’ll question Janeane Garofalo while they wait for Red to be rescued. Larry is like “OMG NO YOU DI’INT. We are in the middle of an INTERNATIONAL CRISIS and all you wanna do is attack an agent who is trying to SAVE US ALL!” And Officious Lawyer is like, “Yep. That’s about sums it up.” But then Janeane Garofalo informs Larry that the NSA who is just listening to random cell phone calls all over the place (Thanks, Patriot Act!) not only intercepted a few seconds of the phone call that Bank Guy and Emerson had regarding killing Red, but managed to identify that this is what they were talking about, and then send it to the FBI. Because, sure. Everyone listens to the call and has a sad.

12:55:30

Emerson and his Big Yellow Execution Van arrive at a construction site, where he informs that Jack will do the honors of killing Red. Of course. Jack leads her out of the van, and as they walk over to a ditch, she blah blah blahs about how she’s not going to beg for her life and all that noise, and Jack’s like “Shut up already. I’m Jack Bauer and if you shut your piehole for just one minute, turn around and play along, I’ll get you through this alive. Jeez Louise.” So she does, and Jack shoots past her neck close enough so that from Emerson’s perspective it looks like he shot her in the head, and she flops onto the ground in a believable fashion and then he kicks her into the ditch, and covers her with a bunch of plastic. But she’s totes alive. Because Jack is awesome.

So Jack heads back t the Big Yellow Execution Van, and Emerson is like, “that was rad. Now go bury her.” And Jack’s like, “AW, COME ON.” But Emerson insists, and sends Tony to help him.

And then the two of them head over to the ditch and start shoveling a bunch of dirt onto Red who is looking up at them in horror from underneath the plastic, and ZOMG NIGHTMARES.

Oh! And here’s a commercial for the inauguration! What a historic moment that will be!